Abstract
The therapy of malignant tumour is exercised by operation, radiotherapy and administration of some anti-carcinogenic agent, and two or more of these methods are applied clinically to a patient.
When leucopenia is caused by the application of radiotherapy or anti-carcinogenic agent, no more therapy can be continued, and there is no medicine either which is sufficiently effective to prevent the decrease of leucocytes. So that in order to prevent the decrease of leucocytes during the application of radiotherapy or administration of an anti-carcinogenic agent, Cepharanthin was administered by 3 to 5mg. a day per os or intramuscularly to 25 cases suffering from malignant tumour.
Leucopenia was found in only 2 of the 25 cases; one case of maxillary cancer was forced to stop radiotherapy because of the dominant decrease of leucocytes. In the other cases, leucopenia appears mainly in 2 weeks after the beginning of the therapy. These results suggest that Cepharanthin acted so as to prevent the decrease of leucocytes due to radiotherapy or anti-carcinogenic agent.
